Having agreed as to what class of work may come under a professedly literary review of Mississippi writings, we are minded to take stock of our property. Being under the conviction that everything which sets forth Mississippi life is worthy of consideration, we may conclude that every Mississippi book has a right to be included in the subject matter worthy of the attention of a Mississippi student. Justin Winsor learned by experience that every printed document was worthy of preservation in the great library of Harvard University and we shall find that no contribution of a Mississippi pen is unworthy of our care. I may call your attention to the fact that much writing of real merit is of a fugitive character and appears only to sink back into the oblivion of musty files of country newspapers. The first work, then, to which I should assign my student is the compilation of a bibliography of Mississippi literature. So far as I know there is no man who knows how many books have been written by our own authors. A confessedly incomplete list of my own compilation reveals the name of many a work the Mississippian of average intelligence has never so much as heard of. As has already been suggested, I should not confine the list to an enumeration of bound volumes. Every pamphlet a copy of which may be had, or the actual appearing of which is assured, ought to be listed in the Bibliography of Mississippi Literature. At the very outset of our labors, we are met with a problem that meets the student of the literature of every section of the United States. What constitutes a Mississippi book? Are we to proceed on the doctrine that once a Mississippian, always a Mississippian and include in our enumeration the books of every writer that has been in the State? If so, Jas. A. Harrison, a native born Mississippian, a Virginian by adoption, is to adorn our lists. Must we add all books written on Mississippi soil? If so, we are to include many volumes of Maurice Thompson, who spends his winters on the Gulf Coast, and dates his prefaces from Bay St. Louis. Are we to include works written by authors then legally residents of the state, afterwards citizens of other states? If so, Professors Bledsoe and Hutson are Mississippi authors. These questions must be settled before we can have an authoritative bibliography. It has been my custom to enumerate as ours, all books written by an author resident in Mississippi at the time of the writing of the volume.